"I didn't expect it in the least.
Only fancy, he is jealous of the Pole.
'Why are you keeping him?' he said.
'So you've begun keeping him.'
He is jealous, jealous of me all the time, jealous eating and sleeping!
He even took into his head to be jealous of Kuzma last week."
"But he knew about the Pole before?"
"Yes, but there it is.
He has known about him from the very beginning but to-day he suddenly got up and began scolding about him.
I am ashamed to repeat what he said.
Silly fellow!
Rakitin went in as I came out.
Perhaps Rakitin is egging him on.
What do you think?" she added carelessly.
"He loves you, that's what it is; he loves you so much.
And now he is particularly worried."
"I should think he might be, with the trial to-morrow.
And I went to him to say something about to-morrow, for I dread to think what's going to happen then.
You say that he is worried, but how worried I am!
And he talks about the Pole!
He's too silly!
He is not jealous of Maximushka yet, anyway."
"My wife was dreadfully jealous over me, too," Maximov put in his word.
"Jealous of you?" Grushenka laughed in spite of herself. "Of whom could she have been jealous?"
"Of the servant girls."
"Hold your tongue, Maximushka, I am in no laughing mood now; I feel angry.
Don't ogle the pies. I shan't give you any; they are not good for you, and I won't give you any vodka either.
I have to look after him, too, just as though I kept an almshouse," she laughed.
"I don't deserve your kindness. I am a worthless creature," said Maximov, with tears in his voice. "You would do better to spend your kindness on people of more use than me."
"Ech, everyone is of use, Maximushka, and how can we tell who's of most use?
If only that Pole didn't exist, Alyosha. He's taken it into his head to fall ill, too, to-day.
I've been to see him also.
And I shall send him some pies, too, on purpose. I hadn't sent him any, but Mitya accused me of it, so now I shall send some!
Ah, here's Fenya with a letter!
Yes, it's from the Poles- begging again!
Pan Mussyalovitch had indeed sent an extremely long and characteristically eloquent letter in which he begged her to lend him three roubles.
In the letter was enclosed a receipt for the sum, with a promise to repay it within three months, signed by Pan Vrublevsky as well.
Grushenka had received many such letters, accompanied by such receipts, from her former lover during the fortnight of her convalescence.
But she knew that the two Poles had been to ask after her health during her illness.
The first letter Grushenka got from them was a long one, written on large notepaper and with a big family crest on the seal. It was so obscure and rhetorical that Grushenka put it down before she had read half, unable to make head or tail of it.
She could not attend to letters then.
The first letter was followed next day by another in which Pan Mussyalovitch begged her for a loan of two thousand roubles for a very short period.
Grushenka left that letter, too, unanswered.
A whole series of letters had followed- one every day- all as pompous and rhetorical, but the loan asked for, gradually diminishing, dropped to a hundred roubles, than to twenty-five, to ten, and finally Grushenka received a letter in which both the Poles begged her for only one rouble and included a receipt signed by both.
Then Grushenka suddenly felt sorry for them, and at dusk she went round herself to their lodging.
She found the two Poles in great poverty, almost destitution, without food or fuel, without cigarettes, in debt to their landlady.
The two hundred roubles they had carried off from Mitya at Mokroe had soon disappeared.
But Grushenka was surprised at their meeting her with arrogant dignity and self-assertion, with the greatest punctilio and pompous speeches.
Grushenka simply laughed, and gave her former admirer ten roubles.
Then, laughing, she told Mitya of it and he was not in the least jealous.